Stars coach Lindy Ruff is now bringing big W's to Big D

Jim Nill executed one of the NHL's biggest heists a few months after being hired as Dallas Stars general manager.

He traded for budding Boston Bruins star Tyler Seguin, who in three years in Dallas has scored 107 goals and 234 points, numbers that would be even more impressive if not for late-season injuries the past two years.

But talk to Nill — the longtime Detroit Red Wings talent evaluator credited for many of their genius draft discoveries that led to four Stanley Cups — and the Seguin blockbuster isn't his proudest acquisition.

"My best move was getting Lindy Ruff," Nill said.

In a league where coaches are hired to be fired within a few seasons, Ruff spent 15 years coaching the Buffalo Sabres before coming to Dallas in 2013. Ruff will be the first to admit that he could have been gassed multiple times along the way, but former Sabres GM Darcy Regier remained loyal throughout ownership changes and a bankruptcy.

But Ruff's longevity was unique, and in three seasons in Dallas, he ended a five-year playoff drought in 2014 and coached the Stars to the regular-season Western Conference crown this season. Heading into Game 4 on Wednesday, Ruff's Stars have a 2-1 series advantage over the Wild.

Ruff guided the Sabres to the 1999 Stanley Cup Final and suffered a controversial conclusion when his current employer, the Stars, won Game 6 in triple overtime despite Brett Hull's toe being in the crease. As ludicrous as it was, that type of goal was routinely overturned via video replay throughout that season.

When Nill first approached Ruff about interviewing for the Stars' gig, Ruff agreed as long as they "didn't meet in a crease."

Ruff coached the Sabres to four Eastern Conference Finals, won a Coach of the Year award and has coached 1,521 games, including the fifth-most regular-season games in NHL history (1,411) with the fifth-most regular-season victories (702).

Handling younger players

The 56-year-old is old school, yet he's capable of still relating to today's player.

"Before you'd want to shut the music off at 6 o'clock for a 7 o'clock game. Now you've got guys walking around with headsets," Ruff said. "The kids nowadays are different. They grew up in a different environment. You can't treat them the way we were treated, or I wouldn't be coaching anymore."

Ruff added with a chuckle, "I have one problem relating to those guys with Twitter and Instagram. I bug players about that stuff and I tell them I've got secret accounts and I'm watching them. They're trying to find me.

"I think the funny thing is when you try to call them and it says their mailbox isn't set up yet. And that's even this year. You've got to text. At the beginning I thought texting was so impersonal, but it's what everyone does now. So if you have to get ahold of him, you text them."

Ruff played 10 of his 12 NHL seasons for Buffalo. Including playoffs, he had 116 goals and 208 assists in 743 games — and 1,457 penalty minutes, including 88 fighting majors. He began coaching during the Florida Panthers' inaugural season in 1993 as Roger Neilson's assistant. Neilson left after two seasons, and then-GM Bryan Murray hired Doug MacLean as coach.

MacLean interviewed Ruff, was blown away and assembled a staff that included Ruff, Duane Sutter and Billy Smith.

"It was a no-brainer [keeping Ruff]," said MacLean, now an analyst with Sportsnet in Canada. "He was a really solid, tactical guy. He was good with the players. He was loose with the players."

Those third-year Cinderella Panthers shocked the Bruins, Flyers and Penguins to reach the Stanley Cup Final. Despite 18 seasons as a head guy, Ruff's proudest achievement still is that 1996 Panthers' run as an assistant.

"Just the plane ride from Pittsburgh to Colorado [after winning the Prince of Wales Trophy] — you'll never forget," Ruff said. "We had such great character on that team."

One of those players was Stu Barnes, a former Stars executive who's now a Stars TV analyst. He not only played for Ruff in Florida, he played five years for him in Buffalo.

"The game has changed so much since Florida and the trap and hooking and holding and stuff," Barnes said. "And you think about that team and the way we played and that defensive style. And he's been able to bring a piece of that here and also encourage these guys who are so offensively gifted to be able to go play their game the way they play."

Changing along with the game

And that might be what's most impressive about Ruff. He studies the game, constantly watches how other teams play and has adapted through different eras. The Wild's Jason Pominville, who played for Ruff in Buffalo, said Ruff used to be an in-your-face coach.

"There was a little bit of a perception out there that he's a real tough guy," Nill said. "I met with him and he said, 'You know what, I've got to change a little bit, too, as a coach. The game has changed, the players have changed, I've got to become more of a people-person type of coach.' And he's done that.

"I saw Lindy as an old-time hockey X-and-O's, just play the game hard, type of thing. He is so up on the technical part of things and the innovations. We've even changed the system from a year and a half ago."

MacLean puts Ruff in the same realm as coaches such as Alain Vigneault and Dave Tippett.

"They're not the show, they don't want to be the show and they're really, really solid hockey guys," MacLean said. "That's what I really like about Lindy. He wins, the team gets credit; he loses, he takes the blame.

"He's not an egomaniac. He's just a really solid, good person. The most important thing about coaching by a country mile is not systems, and it's not all the baloney we like to think it is, it's managing the group.

"Managing the group in the room, managing the group in tough times. And he is a group manager. He manages the group as good as anybody in the league."